It's ninth birthday.

A turned 9 this 5th. Her excitement for birthday celebrations hasn't waned much. But certainly we have been trying different ways to celebrate. I feel she is old enough to understand the need to think of joy emanating from heart then external stimuli. Still a long way to go. So we had a birthday party at play arcade of nearby mall followed by lunch at a restaurant. All in all low key compared to previous affairs where I hosted children and their parents at home  for lunch and enetrtainment.

Two things that needed to be done were cake and return gifts.  So this time I convinced A to do a no gift birthday party. We requested her friends not to bring gifts. I also had hoped I will not do return gifts as well. This did not go too well with anyone at home so I went minimalistic by giving flexible scales that seemed to be very popular in my daughters class.

I enjoy baking cakes but decorating is not my forte. Mostly I would cover the cake with ganache and ask the kids to decorate with sprinkles. till last birthday Ananya wishes for fancy decorations so I conveniently outsourced the cake. But this time around we jointly planned the cake. We had an experience of doing number cake for my son's  6th birthday in January. Building on that idea we decided to do number 9 cake with handmade banner and sprinkles. Other thing she requested was vanilla buttercream frosting. But I have had not very good experience with buttercream. So I suggested chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream filling and whipped chocolate ganache frosting.

Cinnamon swirl banana cake

Ingredients

• 3 over-ripe bananas, smashed up. If you are in Bangalore and using yellaki banana like me please use 6.
• 1/3 cup melted butter at room temperature.
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp baking soda
• dash of salt,omit if using salted butter like Amul
• 1 1/2 cups flour
For topping
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 Tbs cinnamon, fine powdered.

Direction's

1. Preheat oven to 350. Prepare a loaf pan . I used 8 by 4 but you can very well use 9 by 5. My preferred method is to grease the pan , line with baking paper and grease again. But you can butter the pan and dust it with flour also.
2. Mix bananas, butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla together . I use a small hand held cake mixer.
3. Sieve the flour along with baking soda and salt.
4. Then gently stir in flour in the banana mixture with light hand until well incorporated. 
5. Mix together the 1/3 cup sugar and 1 Tbs cinnamon kept for swirling.
6. Add half of the batter to the loaf pan and then sprinkle little more than half of the cinnamon-sugar mixture all over the batter in the pan. Add the rest of the batter, and then sprinkle the leftover cinnamon-sugar on top.
7. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Kadhi

Kadhi is a staple in Rajasthani households. Simple ingredients but every family has their own favorite take on it. Thick, thin, with fritters, with green leaves etc.

My mother in law makes a version of it which tasty and pouplar among friends and relatives.

She is visiting and prepared today for lunch. I watched her and decided to journal the recipe.

Ingredients

1/2 cup besan (gram flour)
2 cups dahi (little thicker then buttermilk)
Turmeric
Coriander powder
Red chilli powder
Salt
Cumin
Cloves
Ajwain

Mustard seed
Asofoetida

Method

Add besan to curd along with turmeric, chilli , coriander, salt . Mix it well and make a lump free mix.

Take a heavy bottom vessel and add a teaspoon of oil. Add cumin , clove and ajwain. When the have crackled add curd besan mix and keep stirring for about 5- 8 minutes.

If you want to add fritters or chopped greens like spinach methi etc add at this stage.

Let it simmer for another 10 minutes. Now prepare a tempering. Take some ghee, add mustard seeds and asofoetida. Can add red chilli powder for nice color. Pour it on top of KADHI. serve it rice/pulao/ chapati etc.

First for everything

So this summer night me and A & R played our first Scrabble game to the end. R used help from me and P but it was indeed peaceful and interesting game. Kids are growing!

Gol gappe ka pani

Ingredients

1/2 cup Soaked tamarind
1/4 cup Mint leaves
1/4 cup Corinader leaves
1/2 Green Chilli
1/2 inch Ginger
Black salt
Salt
Roasted ground cumin
Jaljeera powder
Powdered sugar

Method

Separate the pulp from soaked tamarind and add about a litre of water.
Take the mint, coriander , green chilli and ginger in a small grinder and blend it with little water.

Strain the blended paste with the help of sieve in the tamarind water.
Mix it well.

Now add the dry spices one by one as per taste.

Khandvi

Mention of khandvi conjures up the image of delectable melt in mouth savory experience but also of one considered tricky to master.

Thanks to one of my dear friend who standardized this recipe so well that since then I have been making it often without glitches. Sharing here the same recipe here on request of many :).

Ingredients:

 1 Cup Besan (Gram Flour)

 1.25 Cup yogurt (People in bangalore please use Milky Mist brand for perfect consistency)

1 Cup Water

Salt

Sugar

Turmeric

Chilli Powder

Asafoetida

Mustard seed

Sesame Seeds

Oil

Method:

Mix Besan, Yogurt and water well . Remove lumps if any. Add Salt , sugar, turmeric, red chilli powder, asafoetida as per taste.

Place this mix in a pot. Steam cook this pot in pressure cooker. After 3 whistles lower the flame and keep cooking for 15 minutes. Switch off and wait for the pressure to drop.

Meanwhile , prepare the tadka. Take about 3 teaspoon oil, add mustard seeds, once they begin to crackle switch off the gas and add sesame seeds.

Take out the besan mix and mix well for about minute or two with ladle.

On a clean kitchen counter start applying ot with flat ladle in thin layer. Once all the mix has been applied start cutting with knife in 1.5 inch wide strips. Apply some tadka on top and spread it all around. Now start rolling the strips .

Garnish with remaining tadka, grated coconut and coriander on top.

Enjoy!

Carrot and Radish Pickle

Ingredients

Carrot                                500 gm
                                          Wahsed ,peeled and slit lengthwise
Radish                               250 gm
                                          Washed, peeled and slit lengthwise

Green chilli                       50 gm
                                          Washed , peeled and slit lengthwise

Ginger                               100 gm
                                          Washed,peeled and slit lengthwise
Salt                                    4 tsp
Mustard Oil                      1/2 cup
Red Chilli
powder                              1 tsp
Turmeric powder              1 tsp

Black Pepper                    1/2 tsp
Carrom Seeds                   1/2 tsp
Mustard seed powder       6 to 7 tsp
Asofoetida                        2 pinch
Vinegar                             2 Tbsp

Method

Wash and let dry carrot, radish ,green chilli and ginger. Slit them lengthwise about 2 inch long pieces. Add 2 tsp salt, mix well and keep it in glass container with lid on. Let it sit for 24 hours. Stir once after 10-12 hours.If you want to increase or decrease the quantity of vegetable please feel free to do so.

After 24 hours juice will collect at the bottom of jar. Strain the juice and take out all the vegetables on kitchen towel and let dry for about 1 hour. If you have sun put this to dry in sun.

Once it is dry add all the dry spices except asofoetida and vinegar and mix well. Also add 2 tsp salt.
Heat the mustard oil till it starts smoking. Switch off the flame and let it cool down a bit. After that add asofoetida. Pour this oil over the vegetables and mix well. Once everything is mixed well add vinegar and mix again.

Pickle is ready for consumption.  Though it will taste far better 2 - 3 days later after it had time to sit and release juice and flavors come together.

Chocolate Chip Cookie pizza

Made this for small bake sale at our community. Forgot to take proper picture of final cookie but nonetheless it was perfect. Very well received. For recipe please visit : https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2016/06/27/chocolate-chip-cookie-pizza/.

Recipe 

Whole Wheat Bread

In my quest for perfect loaf of whole wheat or more appropriately Atta aka Chapathi flour bread here is another recipe with more than satisfactory results. Only regret that it is part whole wheat. Would like to try it out with 100% wheat and update the results.

I have baked quite a few whole wheat loaves earlier. The whole wheat flour used in U.S is different then the atta we use for chapathi. Hence all recipes that call for whole wheat flour do not give same results.

But this recipe yields a light and moist  loaf which is pleasure to cut and toast unlike my earlier loaves. Have worked with vital wheat gluten earlier but this is first time I used milkpowder and indeed it made the difference.

Recipe has been adapted from here. I made few changes to the original recipe. Instead of 1.5 cup of AP flour I used  1 cup . Instead of  instant yeast I used Active dry yeast amd surprisingly even when I added it directly to dough mix without proofing it worked well.

Some more pictures from the various steps